THE STOLEN SHELL
The very next morning Bobby Hargrew came screeching into the rear gate of the Lockwood premises as though she was being chased by a bear.
"For the land of pity's sake!" gasped Mrs. Betsey, appearing on the back porch, while Mary put her red head out of the kitchen window, and both of them waved admonitory hands at Bobby to still her shrieks. "What is the matter with that girl of Tom Hargrew's?" demanded the old housekeeper.
The twins came flying. Fortunately Aunt Dora was asleep, but they all feared Bobby's calliope-like voice would awaken the patient.
"Listen here! Listen here!" cried Bobby, smothering some of the upper register, but still quite "squally" enough, in all conscience, as Mrs. Betsey said.
"We're listening, Bobby! Do tell us what it is," cried the twins in unison.
"The shell is gone!" cried Bobby.
"Gone where?"
"What shell?"
"Our new shell. And if I knew where it was gone I wouldn't be telling you about how it was stolen, for it would be an old story then," said Bobby, panting.
"You don't mean to say that the new shell has been taken out of the boathouse—and a watchman there?"
"That's what I mean. It's gone," said Bobby, solemnly. "Mike, the watchman, doesn't know when it was taken. One of the big doors was forced open and our beautiful shell has disappeared. There are two launches out searching the lake for it."
"But who would have done such a thing?" cried Dorothy.
"And what could be their object?" demanded her sister.
"Ask me an easier one," said the grocery-man's daughter. "I only know it's gone, and the intention evidently is to make us Central High girls lose the race."
"Oh, who would be so mean?" gasped one of the twins.
"There are four other contestants in the eight-oared class," said Bobby, grimly.
"You don't believe any of the other girls have stolen the shell?" cried Dora, in horror.
"Why, Bobby! how could they do it? And in the night, too?" demanded Dorothy.
"I don't say who did it. But it may have been somebody hired to do it by some other crew."
"Keyport?" suggested Dora, doubtfully.
"They're the very best crew on the lake—next to ours," added Dorothy.
"And they probably think themselves the better of the two," said the shrewd Bobby. "I'd suspect either of the other three first."
"But it's just awful to suspect any of the other Highs. What a mean, mean trick!"
"If they'd only taken the old shell," wailed Dorothy.
"That's it. They knew we had little chance to beat them in the old shell. But some spy must have watched us and timed us in the new boat," said Bobby with decision. "And so—it went!"
"I can scarcely believe it," sighed Dorothy.
"But it must be found before the Big Day!" cried Dora.
"I guess that's what all the girls of Central High will say. But Lake Luna is a large body of water, and there are plenty of wild pieces of shore where the shell could be hidden, in the mouth of a creek, or some such place. Or, perhaps it has been removed from the lake altogether. Oh, it may have been already destroyed."
"Dreadful!" groaned Dorothy.
"And we haven't paid for it, yet," added Dora.
The news of the shell's disappearance was well circulated over the Hill before schooltime. The girls of Central High could scarcely give proper attention to their textbooks that morning. Some of the members of the crew actually wept. It was the afternoon for practice, and there were only a few more such opportunities.
There was no news of the lost boat when school was out. The police had been notified, and the police launch had taken up the search. The watchman at the boat houses was made to admit that it had been his custom to sleep most of the night. There had never been any robbery of the school boathouses before. But, as Principal Sharp of Central High said, another watchman would doubtless be able to keep awake better than Mike, and the old man received his notice.
This stringent measure did not bring the lost shell back, however. Professor Dimp had the girls out in the old shell that afternoon, and although they did their very best, they fell back more than forty seconds in half a mile. And from what they knew about Keyport, the girls of Central High knew very well that they could not afford to drop those forty seconds if they were to win the Luna Boat Club's cup.
There wasn't a girl in Central High—unless it was Hester Grimes—who did not consider the loss of the new shell a calamity. Theories of the wildest nature were put forward to explain the robbery. That the shell had been stolen for the sake of profit was hardly likely. Eight-oared shells cannot be pledged at a pawn shop; nor would any other rowing club purchase such a boat without knowing just where the craft came from.
Really, Bobby Hargrew's belief that one of the competing crews had caused the shell to be spirited away gained ground among the school pupils as a body. Yet there was no trace of the course of the robbers, and the search of the borders of the lake was fruitless.
The newspapers took it up and the theory that one of the competing crews had caused the shell's disappearance was printed. This forced some discussion of the matter before the Board of Education, and the minority which had always been against competitions between the schools gained some strength.
Above all, it looked bad for the Central High crew. They all knew in their hearts that with the heavy and lubberly old shell which was left them, they could not win the race on the Big Day. This thought took the heart out of them and on Friday afternoon, when they practiced, their showing was even worse than it had been before.
Saturday the "Treasure Hunters" had their outing at Cavern Island. They went in several small boats, and the twins, finding Aunt Dora much improved (or seemingly so) joined the party at the last moment and paddled their canoe with the rest.
"Oh, my, my!" cackled Lance Darby as he slid into a seat in Chet's boat that Josephine Morse had been about to take. "Awful accident on the Lake! Terrible Catastrophe While Boating on Luna! Lady had Her Eye on a Seat and a Gent Sat on It! My, my!"
"You needn't think you're so smart," returned Jess. "Now you're there, you can row—both you and Chet. Laura and I will sit here in the stern and watch you both work. Work is good for boys, anyway."
"Yes," growled Chet. "It's like what they say about the fleas on dogs. A certain number of fleas are good for a dog; helps him keep his mind off the fact that he is a dog!"
Short and Long balanced the big boat by sitting in the bow, and the fleet got under way.
"We're going right to Boulder Head, aren't we?" demanded Short and Long.
"Is that where the treasure is buried?" asked Laura, laughing.
"It's somewhere around there; or in the caves. You folks can laugh," said Billy, "but those foreigners talked enough English for me to understand that the money——"
"In a lard kettle," put in Bobby, chuckling.
"In a lard can," corrected Billy, "was hidden on the island, and was not far from the caves."
"Maybe when the man you said was hanging around so long disappeared, he took the treasure with him," laughed Dorothy Lockwood.
"And I bet I know who the two men were whom Billy heard quarreling over a lard can," cried Dora.
"You know, do you?" demanded Billy. "Well, who were they?"
"Tony Allegretto and the man the police found him fighting with," said Dora promptly.
"Great Scott!" gasped Chetwood Belding. "Do you hear that, Lance?"
"Never thought of 'em!" answered his chum.
"Buried treasure, too!" said Chet, thoughtfully. "Tony said they were quarreling over money."
"There is something that needs looking into about Tony Allegretto," declared Mother Wit, seriously. "Don't you think so, Chet?"
"It might be well to find out what the money was, and where they got it to quarrel over," agreed Chet, slowly.
"Pirate gold, of course!" laughed Bobby Hargrew, from another boat. "Don't spoil all the romance of this treasure hunt by suggesting that the buried loot is merely the proceeds of the sale of a banana stand that the two Italians owned in partnership."